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Took two people down from Sedona here today for the two hour shuttle van drive to catch their flights out of Phoenix's Sky Harbor. After I dropped them off, I called the office and at which time they advised me that my one lone scheduled inbound passenger's flight had been delayed by a couple of hour, and so they said to just come on back empty. Started to do just that, but then decided to stop into the local Costco near the airport and grab a couple of things I've been needing. After I walked into the place and as I was passing through an aisle containing menswear, suddenly the sound of an alarm with a fast-paced high-pitched oscillating sound rang out from somewhere near the back wall of the store and which could be heard by all. After about five seconds of hearing this, I just couldn't resist yelling out in as loud a voice as I could muster, "RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! THE GIANT ANTS ARE HERE!" Yep, that alarm sounded JUST like THIS... Now, I heard one guy, that's right, only ONE single solitary guy from a couple of aisles away laugh out loud at this, but THEN noticed that everyone within a twenty foot radius, about half a dozen people and none of which looked any older than about forty, were just staring at me and had a look on their faces as if to say "What the hell is this guy talking about?!" It was then that that alarm ceased sounding, and so I just threw up my hands and loudly said, "Sorry folks. False alarm, I guess", and continued on with my shopping. (...epilogue: After paying for my new shirt and my bundle of microfiber shop rags, I stopped by their little snack bar and got me one of their tasty foot-long hot dogs and a Pepsi...not a bad deal for only a buck and a half, right?!)

The LadyKillers (original with Alec Guiness) Fun with Dick and Jane (both versions are cute) Odds Against Tomorrow (highly recommend it if you have never seen it - it has been on Noir Alley before) Robin Hood (Errol Flynn version)

Make it a trio ending with Paths of Glory.

THE STING RIFIFI OCEAN’S ELEVEN

The man was a walking caricature AND A GOD!!!! He has his own doll/action figure. Dyn-O-MITE!!!

The Lavender Hill Mob (1951) Topkapi (1964) The Biggest Bundle of Them All (1968) The Italian Job (1969) The First Great Train Robbery (1978) Entrapment (1999)

High Fidelity (2000) Straight Talk (1992) The Hunter (1980) The Sting (1972) Adventures in Babysitting (1987) About Last Night (1986) North by Northwest (1959) Cooley High (1975) Hoop Dreams (1994)

To Catch a Thief (1955) Charade (1963) Going in Style (1979) Quick Change (1980) Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988) A Fish Called Wanda (1988) Catch Me If You Can (2002)

Gambit (1966) The League of Gentlemen (1960) The Day the Robbed the Bank of England (1960) Sneakers (1992) Sexy Beast (2000)

Goldfinger 1964 How To Steal a Million 1966 Hot Millions 1968 The Thomas Crown Affair 1968 Dollars 1971 The Anderson Tapes 1971 The Hot Rock 1972 Harry in Your Pocket 1973 How to Beat the High Cost of Living 1980

So in an effort to satisfy my curiosity, under the guise of working overtime (pfft), I stayed late at work last night to try and definitively determine just who the brothers Warner were lampooning. After the majority of my co-workers had left for home I went into John Robie mode and snuck (sneaked?, snook?) back into the lab and reprogrammed the Micro-Vu Versamatic 251c vision system to analyze and measure the various characteristics such as nose length, shape and angle, chin and cheekbone structure, hair style including where parted, shoulder width, eyebrow thickness, amount and style of facial hair along with a bunch of other minutiae that seemed sorta relevant at the time, of the caricature in question and compare it to photos and film clips of stars from the era. I naturally edited it to exclude the obvious non-contenders such as Vivian Leigh (gender), Lassie (species), anyone deceased more than two months (decomposition), and me (lack of screen appearance). After the imbibing of many refreshing ice cold Coca-Colas the results finally came in and let me tell you they were shocking to say the least! The final scientific results show that there's a pretty good chance that the character shown is actually... John damn Carradine wearing a George Brent mask imitating Xavier Cugat! 😲 Wow! I don't know about you but I didn't see that one coming! Unfortunately as I said there was much consuming of soft drinks so I wasn't able to return the equipment back to it's original status before the loo beckoned me. I bet those guys were surprised by the test results of their endoscopic surgical parts this morning! Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to go sneakily see about erasing some security camera footage.

The Old Dark House (1932) Three people caught in a terrible storm take refuge in the first place they find. They are soon joined by two others who were caught in the storm also. I find it surprising and more than moderately suspicious that I have never before watched this movie in its entirety. Boris Karloff is superb in his first credited starring role. Melvyn Douglass was beginning his career as a suave leading man. Charles Laughton was perfecting his complex blustering characterizations. Raymond Massey was quite interesting as a happily-married man trying very hard to not strangle his wife. 8.8/10 It is available for viewing free with commercials on: TubiTV. Edit: I am sure that it was quite frightening to watch this is a large dark movie theater of the 1930s. Watching it in bed sipping hot cocoa and nibbling treats while the two kittens whom I am fostering fight under the covers until they fell asleep ... not so much.

And now here's a pic which'll put faces to names in regard to some that worked at Termite Terrace back in the day...

THE GREAT MUPPER CAPER

Speaking of reading a review or plot synopsis that gives away very important plot points in movies . . . Years ago I bought the moody 1972 drama MY OLD MAN'S PLACE on 'PRISM Entertainment' and read the plot summary on the back of the video box before watching the movie and I'll be darned if the box description didn't give away the end of the movie. The dum (sic) sonsabinches who OK'ed that summary should've had their paychecks docked for a week or a month on account of 'STUPIDITY'. Sheesh!

Last night, I re-watched Eight Men Out. It is directed by John Sayles (who also has an acting role in the film, along with Studs Terkel). There are so many movies about baseball, and this is one of them. The film is based on a true scandal when the White Sox became the Black Sox. Eight White Sox Players (Shoeless Joe Jackson - Ray Liotta plays him in Field of Dreams - claims he never participated in the scandal) were paid to throw the World Series. One of the reasons the players agreed to throw the games (even though they wanted to win) was the reality of the owner sending flat champagne instead of salary raises/bonuses. There is so much in this film that I love. Great characters, great acting, the feeling of what life was like circa 1919, how little boys manage to sneak into baseball parks (think my Dad did that) to see their beloved Sox (and how disappointed they are when the scandal becomes fodder for the press). "Say it ain't so, Joe" is a famous/infamous line said to Jackson from one of the press. I highly recommend this movie.

Would be well worth it. I watched quite a few of his films in the last year that i'd never seen before. Some great ones buried in there,

The scene near the end, with Melvyn Douglas and the crazy pyromaniac brother are pretty unnerving.

The African Queen (1951) This Sunday was my first time seeing it...loved it! Prior, I had only seen Bogart in The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca. Still lots to catch up on...thinking about watching through his filmography.

Medina, Patricia

Lane, Diane

I think I've seen that before somewhere.

2019 Don't go to the Wikipedia article before viewing this film. You get a spoiler in the first couple of lines. Why? Because the narrative thread of this fine drama has resulted into wiki carelessness. The story is told essentially by three characters, one right after the other, covering the same duration. Three overlapping POV looks. The various threads come together with fine resolution. Wikipedia tells us in a flash what the movie has taken pains to tell us in a most interesting and classy way. ///

Mickey One (1965) Medium Cool (1969) Ordinary People (1980) Pennies from Heaven (1981) Sixteen Candles (1984) The Color of Money (1986) Midnight Run (1987) A League of Their Own (1991) Spider-Man 2 (2004) Chi-Raq (2015)

This is conclusive proof that the spaceship designers at Star Trek had a plumbing background:

The movie is nonsense.

That was Diana Lynn who was a child prodigy as a concert pianist by the age of 12. She made her film debut playing the piano in They Shall Have Music and There's Magic In Music. Paramount put her under contract and she supported Ginger Rogers in The Major and the Minor. After The Miracle of Morgan's Creek she appeared in two Henry Aldrich films and two My Friend Irma films along with one of the last Martin & Lewis movies, You're Never Too Young. During the 1950s she played Spencer Tracy's daughter in The People Against O'Hara, Ronald Reagan's leading lady in Bedtime for Bonzo and co-starred with Burt Lancaster in The Kentuckian. After leaving Hollywood and running a travel agency in NYC for a number of years, Paramount offered her a part in Play It As It Lays, and she moved back to L.A. Before filming began, she suffered a stroke and died in 1971 at age 45.

I'm currently reading The Winds of War by Herman Wouk (who's best known for The Caine Mutiny). The Winds of War is a long book -- almost 900 pages -- covering the late 30s and the very early 40s, the time leading to the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. The story focuses on a Navy family and their involvement in the developing war. The father is a senior naval officer who becomes involved with significant historical figures and events; the mother is primarily a hostess and charity fundraiser who has her own, more personal experiences; their two sons have differing views on a naval career but both join up nonetheless; and their younger sister works in the NYC radio broadcasting world. There are also major characters among the family's acquaintances, such as a best-selling Jewish historian who lives in Italy with his brilliant niece, both of whom come to know the family's younger son quite well while the European situation explodes around them. Wouk involves each family member in interesting, sometimes gripping, adventures, all connected in some way to the war. I can see why The Winds of War was a big best-seller in the 1970s and was made into a mini-series in the early 80s, with Robert Mitchum heading a well-known cast. I haven't seen the mini-series, but I'm enjoying the book so much that I may have to watch it later. I plan to read the equally-long sequel, War and Remembrance, next. (As I understand it, Wouk originally intended the two books to be published as one volume, but the combined text was just too long for a single book.) Besides being a great story, this book also provides a fairly detailed history of World War II. Although I know a bit about WW II, I feel like reading this novel is increasing my historical knowledge, about parts of the war, at least. I rarely read best-sellers, and to tell the truth, I don't read novels as often as I used to, mainly preferring non-fiction. But The Winds of War reminds me how wonderful it is to get caught up in a well-told story. Wouk is a very good writer.

Check the PBS stations in your area several of them are showing the new remastered version, it is like 20 hours total but worth every minute of it,a classic as great as The Civil War.

Currently reading: 1) The Last Juror (John Grisham) - almost through 2) I am Anna by Paul Bluestein (know the author) - really interesting sci-fi novel 3) The Book of Lamentations (read online from JPS - could see both Hebrew and English) This is supposed to have been written by the prophet Jeremiah and I read it in observance of Tisha B'Av. 4) Antiquities by Cynthia Ozick 5) Jeeves and the King of Clubs (can't remember author - I think it is Dan Schott - but not as good as Wodehouse) 6) The Ventriloquists (Remzipoor?)

The owner Charles Comiskey was a very mean and greedy man,the White Sox were the Black Sox before the scandal.Comiskey decided to charge the players for the cleaning of their uniforms,the players decided to play with a dirty uniforms for a long time earning the knickname Black Sox , Comiskey finally conceded but screwed the players by charging them back the fees and deducting from their earnings bonus of the World Series of 1917.Severalplayers did not asked for their bribe money in advance, i have seen the film many years ago.Y ou should watch the Baseball documentary by Ken Burns.

In Field of Dreams Shoeless Joe Jackson is seen batting from the right-hand side of the plate. This is incorrect. He was a left-handed hitter. Eight Men Out gets it right.

Ah, well, looking them both over I only notice Aherne's nose being a bit thinner, but not really straighter than Brent's. And too, since the caricature was a profile, AND a caricature, chances are the nose really doesn't resemble either person's. And both Flynn's and Colman's caricature's weren't really profiles. But at least we can agree on one thing.... It SURE AS HELL isn't Ameche! Sepiatone

Yes- SAUL- who does some MARVELOUS ACTING WITH HIS EYES...You're right, that part is very scary. Believe it or not, I tracked down a copy of BENIGHTED the JB PRIESTLY novel on which THE OLD DARK HOUSE is based and the story is more or less the same (as I recall it) but flat on the page without the actors and without WHALE'S touches (like the marvelous way the hateful old woman shovels the dinner into her mouth) it comes across very straight and a little tepid.

Rosalind Russell as Hildy in "His Girl Friday".

The guy on the left looks like Spencer Tracy as Mr. Hyde.

I love this one, but I don't actually think it was intended to be scary at all. I see it as a BLACK COMEDY, a GOTHIC FARCE, a WHIMSICAL GRAND GUIGNOL.... Did I spell GUIGNOL right?

This is Clarence Wilson, character actor as seen here playing the twitchy-eyed banker in "You Can't Take It With You", and apparently at least for that fuzzy image, Fritz Freleng's doppelganger. Okay well maybe not... 😁 But honestly, that cartoon looked just like Rudy Vallee, even morso than Henry Binder. Let alone the prior one looking like Brent, Flynn, or Aherne. See how this works? Here is another potential picture of Henry Binder, in the rear. See, nothing like the cartoon. Actually I am not even sure that is really him, but let's play along and say it is. See? Nothing like him. Enough of me and my crap. Here is what you really want. And if you don't like that, here's some Eric Carmen. All the way from Cleveland. With old friends

GOOD TIMES is referred to as a spin-off of MAUDE, but really Esther Rolle's Florida Evans from MAUDE is a different character than the Florida Evans on GOOD TIMES. MAUDE's Florida was employed as Maude's maid in Tuckahoe, New York ( a village that is approximately a half hour train ride from Manhattan). The Florida Evans from GOOD TIMES, however, lived her entire life in Chicago. The Evans family on GOOD TIMES lived in a Chicago housing project, which was unnamed on the series but was strongly implied to be Cabrini-Green, on Chicago's Near North Side. John Amos played Florida's husband on both MAUDE and GOOD TIMES. On MAUDE, he was Henry Evans, a New York City firefighter; on GOOD TIMES, he was James Evans and worked odd jobs in Chicago. The Florida Evans character was put into a series already in development and her history from MAUDE was erased.

Quo Vadis (1951)

Obsession (1976)

4. Sandy Baron

Vincent Price

LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN (1945)

"The Lady in the Tutti Frutti Hat"--The Gang's All Here Sung by Carmen Miranda Next: Another unforgettable Carmen Miranda song

One of my all time favorites. Thanks TCM! I never would have seen this otherwise and I had no idea who Eddie Bracken or Betty Hutton were until I first watched it a few years ago. It had such a fun story. The whole time I was trying to imagine my mother, a very young woman at the time, watching Betty Hutton get plastered, wreck her friend's car, have sex with a stranger, (we all think it must have been the tall handsome one) then end up pregnant and unmarried, or at least alone and unmarried -- all things I would have expected to scandalize her generation, but instead played for laughs and a warm happy ending. Special mention to the little sister playing the boogie woogie blues on the piano.

Curiously, the article did not have a plot category, so it wasn't there. The reveal came via a cursory comment at the top of the article, thus careless. I do see your point about Wikipedia, but OTOH not all Wikipedia articles are bad.

Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1956) A Raisin in the Sun (1961) The Untouchables (1987) Proof (2005)

To me, sometimes Gina Carano resembles Angie Dickinson.